Pro Patria Mori
by Solstice Zero
Summary: The one sound Jack never wanted to hear again was a chorus of voices calling out for 'mummy'. Jack/Ianto. Spoilers for Doctor Who "The Empty Child". Now complete.
1. Chapter 1

"_Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,  
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,  
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling  
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.  
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,  
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.  
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,  
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning."  
_-Wilfred Owen

* * *

The note stuck to the monitor in the Tourist Office said in small, serious letters, "I'll be gone until noon. –CJH" Pink Post-It, blue writing, and Ianto plucked it off and cleaned the adhesive smudge from the glass. He didn't think about it.

He wasn't thinking about it when Gwen called from a police liaison in Swansea, sent straight from bed to the field. He held the phone away from his ear and eventually set it down and walked away from it to feed Myfanwy, letting Gwen's ranting ring out into the Hub from the corner of Jack's desk.

Ianto continued not to think about it when he caught the sweep of Jack's coat on one of the CCTV feeds. He kept it firmly out of his mind as he watched Jack's progress over the Plass, his approach a head-down-hands-in-pockets affair that Ianto couldn't think about.

Don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it-

_Where were you?_

Ianto knew he couldn't ask. The small, serious letters; the police liaison; the pensive walk. These were all signals. Don't ask. Don't even think about it, because you can't ask. Gwen was sent away because she couldn't help but pry. If she never set foot in the Hub that day, then she would never know that Jack had been gone. Jack knew that Ianto could contain that curiosity; he trusted Ianto to be able to let it go. And Ianto could do that.

But it was in no way an easy thing to do.

The door alarms went and the cog wheel rolled back, revealing Jack, his face arranged to betray nothing, which in turn betrayed a lot of things. Ianto turned his eyes back to the monitor in front of him as Jack approached. The stairs normally taken in bounds were taken in steps entirely separate from each other. Ianto felt the brush of Jack's sleeve on his shoulder as Jack rested his hand there, peering at the screen. "What are you working on?" His voice was off. Ianto couldn't tell if there was truly something different, or if it was his imagination trying to find some clue.

"Satellite footage of a Brakeni spacecraft caught by the US military." He spoke easily, not turning from the screen. "Just cleaning up a bit." He deleted it. Poof. Never existed in the first place. "They should think about improving their security."

"Let them keep it the way it is, if it makes our lives easier." Jack started for his office, shrugging out of his coat.

"I'm sure China feels the same way." Ianto didn't turn, but caught the amused pause of Jack's arms on the way to the coat tree reflected in the monitor. Then they continued, hanging up the coat and disappearing as Jack stepped over to his desk.

"Gwen back yet?" Under Jack's voice Ianto could hear the shuffle of papers, and knew that Jack was carefully piling the files that Ianto had set on his desk that morning on top of the files he had placed there the morning previous, all of them doomed to be dutifully ignored until there was a bout of shouting done.

"Not yet. Would you like me to get ahold of her?"

"Don't worry about it. She'll be back eventually."

Ianto stood and moved into Jack's office, leaning against the doorframe. "She wasn't particularly pleased with the task. Or the timing."

Jack glanced up, brow quirked. "Would you rather I sent you?"

"Not at all. I quite enjoy sleeping, when I'm able. I just don't enjoy receiving irate phone calls periodically throughout the day."

"Well, she should have been investigating, not calling you." Jack picked up a file from the stack and began to read it. Ah. Entering uncomfortable territory. Jack would never willingly look at paper with the Torchwood logo on it.

"Moreover, she should have been calling _you_, not me. I had nothing to do with sending her to Swansea. But your phone was off." Toeing the line. Jack said nothing, but looked up. And this was where Ianto could have done it. Crossed the line from Trusted Employee to Overcurious Lover. He met Jack's eyes.

_We are playing this game, you and I._

"Coffee?"

Jack nodded. "Thanks."

Ianto started away, and heard Jack place the paper back on its stack.

- - -

She was going to kill him. She was lucky, in that she could say that sort of thing and actually carry it out. She was going to kill him, and then maybe kill him again for good measure. Jack bloody Harkness and his bloody UNIT liaison in Swansea. Cutlery! Alien cutlery, and she'd gone all the way out to the middle of nowhere, to some bastard UNIT tent in the rain next to a hole in the ground _just to be safe_.

When she was stumbling around at five in the morning trying to find clothes with Jack on the phone in her ear, she thought that it would at least be a life threatening situation, but no. Alien cutlery. Martian knives and forks. She stalked across the Plass, empty handed, because UNIT had taken the artefacts with them. They hadn't even wanted a liaison. They'd been surprised she was even there.

Jack had better have balloons and a cake waiting for her. And she'd probably still kill him.

There was a shout, and she turned, her arms dropping, her hand falling to her holster, an automatic response. A group of people was forming about twenty metres to her right, in a tight circle around – something. She couldn't make it out through the forest of bodies. But there, through legs, she could see – a flail of limbs, arms clad in business-suit-black. The flash of a red tie. Had someone collapsed? A seizure? She drew closer – but then from nearby there was the wail of a siren that made everyone jump, and an ambulance pulled up beside the knot of people. They all stepped back as two men dressed in green came around the sides of the vehicle, and Gwen stopped approaching. Nothing she could do. She watched the paramedics kneel in the circle of bodies, obscuring her view of the patient. Reluctantly, she turned and made once more for the Tourist Office.

It was strange. No one left when the paramedics arrived. They were still there, staring.

It wasn't until she was in the Hub that she remembered she was angry. "Jack Harkness, I will bloody kill you!"

"Won't be that effective."

She could see him from the bottom of the stairs, sitting at his desk. "Alien cutlery, Jack! And UNIT boys giving me the eye the whole time."

"No surprise there." He looked up with a grin that didn't meet his eyes, and Gwen paused in the doorway.

"Are you all right, Jack?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Fine. Why?"

She frowned, but was interrupted by Ianto suddenly saying from behind her, "Coffee, Gwen?"

She jumped about three feet and spun to look at him. "Give me a heart attack, Ianto."

"Gladly." He offered her a mug and she took it with a playful slap to his shoulder. He set Jack's mug on his desk, then took the remaining one and moved to lean with his back against the wall, letting the serving tray dangle from his fingers and swing lightly against his shin.

"So, what have I missed?" She looked between them and raised the mug to her lips – her expression turning to an almost obscene relief at the wash of caffeine.

"Nothing much," Jack said, leaning back in his chair. "No rift activity, anyway."

Gwen hummed her approval, then remembered. "Outside," she said, looking back out of the office door, "I just saw something strange. Someone collapsed on the Plass."

Ianto raised a brow. "Overexcited tourist?"

"Yes, because the water tower is such a thrilling sight."

Jack grinned. "Ianto has a point, though. Not everything is caused by aliens."

Gwen sighed. "More often than not."

Jack shrugged. "If you want to investigate it, then by all means. Looks like a slow day."

There were three short raps and they both looked to see Ianto with his knuckles against the frame of the office windows. Knock on wood.

- - -

Ianto picked up Gwen's mug as he was passing, then paused to look over her shoulder. "How's it coming?"

Gwen frowned at the screen before her. "The CCTV is unclear and there's no word from NHS about a patient who collapsed on the Plass."

Ianto shrugged. "It must have been nothing, then."

"Maybe." She spun in her chair to look at him. "So, what's wrong with Jack?"

Ianto's stomach lurched in surprise. "Pardon?"

"You heard me," she said, her voice low, glancing briefly at the doorway to Jack's office. "He's a bit – off, don't you think?"

Ianto forced his eyebrows down, forced a confused frown onto his lips. "I don't know what you're talking about. He's been fine all day."

She met his eyes and he didn't waver, as tempting as it was to do so. Any little signal, and Gwen would pounce, badgering Jack until he either left or came out with it. Then Ianto would know, too. It would be nice to have Gwen do the dirty work. But then, the game.

She sighed, giving up. "All right. Maybe it's just a mood. Are you restricting access or something?"

Ianto rolled his eyes. "If I were, you would be hearing more about it."

"I'm all ears."

Ianto shook his head and moved on.

Gwen called to his retreating back, "You're no fun!"

- - -

A point in favor of superstition; there was no rift activity all day.

Jack sent them home at the normal-person hour of six o'clock, just as the sun was starting to descend. Ianto couldn't remember the last time he had left the Hub for the evening when the sun was still visible. He declined Gwen's offer of a ride home and walked instead, enjoying the brief and deceptive feeling of being just another office bloke going home for the night to watch Wife Swap and fall asleep on the couch. It was the little pleasures.

As he approached his building from the opposite side of the street, Ianto could see the silent flashing lights of a parked ambulance, the back doors left open. As he crossed over and passed by it, he peered into the back. No one there. The radio in the front chattered idly away to itself.

The lift hummed him up to his floor, and he let himself into his flat with a relieved sigh, prepared already to put the day behind him. He turned the television on as he passed it by and the evening news mumbled beneath the faucet as he went about mechanically making coffee.

Jack had remained slightly "off" all day. Quiet. And, as a result, the Hub itself had been quiet, all of them working separately in near silence. It was almost like – well. It was almost like when Tosh and Owen had just died. That silence, pervading the Hub, which Ianto had only been able to escape by losing himself in the archives, away from Gwen's occasional catches of breath and Jack's oppressed and guilty gaze, roaming from Gwen to Ianto and back again.

Ianto knew, though no one said it, that it would have been better if it were him, rather than Owen or Tosh. One of them, at least, would be better than neither of them surviving. But Owen was king of the weevils. And Tosh. Tosh was just in the wrong place. But they'd saved the city as their dying act, and maybe that was worth the sacrifice. The butler survived over the tech and the medic, and Cardiff didn't succumb to nuclear meltdown.

This was not a direction that Ianto wanted his thoughts to head in. He started the coffee and moved into the living room, loosening his tie and shrugging out of his jacket. On the television, a medical symbol floated beside the head of the anchorman, who was speaking with a serious expression. Ianto draped his jacket over the back of the couch and headed for the bathroom. He turned on the taps in the shower, then paused.

He'd heard something.

He turned off the water and stood up straight, listening. The sound of the television. That was all.

No – the sound of someone in the hallway. A neighbor? He stepped back into the living room. There was a shuffling beyond the door to the flat. Then a loud bang on the wall. Ianto jumped, then gripped the back of the couch, staring. "Is there anyone there?" More shuffling. A sound, like someone dragging their hand across the wood of the door. Then another bang, an impact in the middle of the door, and Ianto jumped again. "Hold on, I'm coming!"

But he wasn't. He didn't move. He stood absolutely still, staring at the door. There was something wrong. There was something off about this. He tried to tell himself that it was someone fucking with him, or a drunk neighbor, or something else entirely innocent, but he knew, he knew it wasn't. It was silent for a moment.

Then.

"Mummy?"

And Ianto's heart stopped.

This was not a voice that should be saying that word. This was not a voice that should be coming through his door. This was hardly a voice at all, but something almost solidly malevolent.

"Mummy? Are you there, mummy?"

Low and high at once, like three voices in one; man, child, demon. Quiet but screaming all the same.

_What the hell was it?_

Ianto slowly let go of the back of the couch. Color rushed back into his knuckles, and the deep indents in the upholstery began to fill in. He took a breath that hitched in the middle and scanned the room. His gun was on the table beside the door. The first step toward it seemed impossibly loud, even on the carpet, but there was no noise from outside. Another step, his arms held out as though to balance himself, and he could feel the quivering of the muscles in his legs, in his stomach, entirely unpleasant. More steps, taken slow, all the while staring at the door, ears straining for more noises. Nothing. He reached the table and slowly, silently picked up the gun, checked that it was loaded, held it down and pointed away. Then he looked at the door. He pressed his eye to the peephole.

And recoiled back with a shout, almost falling.

It was pressed against the door with its face – face? – up to the peephole; dead plastic-glass gaze, metal-rimmed eyes and grated mouth. A gas mask. Fused to its skin, lines of bubbled, burnt flesh melted against the black latex. The door started to shake back and forth in the jamb as the thing threw itself against the wood, screaming, "Mummy! Mummy!"

The tip of Ianto's gun shook as he pointed it at the door, taking breaths that caught and almost choked him. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and dialed without looking, then pressed it to his ear, eyes still wide and watching down the gun sight at the door. It rang once. Twice. Picked up. "Jack!"

Nothing.

No. Breathing.

"Jack, answer me! There's something outside of my flat, it's trying to get in – it looks like someone wearing a gas mask, it keeps-" The door stopped slamming against its hinges. Ianto held his breath.

"Mummy?" Through the phone. In his ear. Quiet.

And the lights cut out.

He shouted a curse, suddenly blind, and fell over something trying to get to a torch in his kitchen. The pounding against the door was back (couldn't anyone outside hear it? His neighbors?), and Ianto could hear it starting to give. He scrambled to his feet and felt along the floor to figure out where he was. Table leg. Back of the couch.

The door crashed open.

Ianto froze. It was silent. No light fell in from the hallway; all of the power in the building gone, then. And then he could hear it moving. Slow, unsteady footsteps. Breathing through the respirator, loud and raucous like someone drowning.

The door. He could leave through the door, if he could get past the – whatever it was, the thing whispering _'mummy'_ as it shuffled across the floor. He stole himself to run.

And a different voice from the hallway shouted, "Mummy?"

More of them.

Panic gripped him and he forced himself to stay still, silent, his hands balled into painful fists and his heart beating hard and loud against his ribs. Had to escape, had to run, but how?

The window. Ianto looked up to see the dark outline of the thing as it made its way closer, the under-breath mumble of _'mummy, mummy, mummy'_ drawing nearer. It was slow. It wouldn't catch him. He gripped the back of the couch, pulled himself to his feet and threw himself across the room, to the window, ignored the cuts to his hands as he shoved them through the blinds to unlock it and yanked it upwards. It came up three inches. He pulled again, harder; another three inches, and he heard the thing turning toward him ("Mummy, where are you going?") and he shoved it up higher, putting all of his strength into one drastic, desperate heave, and it opened enough to let him through.

He scrambled over the sill, his feet hitting the metal fire escape, and turned back to close the window – but the thing was there, one hand (slashed open across the back) reaching out for him, and Ianto could see it perfectly now in the light from the street below; gas mask fitted below dark hair, eyes unseen through the glass but giving the impression of being wide, frightened, desperate, mouth seeming drawn in a constant distraught "o", as though profoundly horrified. Ianto ducked away from the hand and gripped the rail of the fire escape. He gave himself only another second to take in the creature before he was running – down the unsteady metal steps with the uneven clatter of the creature following him; three levels of stairs, and then the final bit, the ladder –

Broken. Stuck, with a ten foot drop from the bottom of the fire escape.

Ianto looked back to see the creature reach the final landing and slip slightly on the metal. It turned to face him. They squared off, Ianto one level below it, watching it bob slightly, as though unable to balance itself. It said low, sad, desperate, "Mummy, please." It took one step down.

Ianto looked over the edge of the fire escape. He looked back at the creature. He pushed himself over.

He hit the asphalt with his shoulder and cried out in pain, but was up in a moment, spinning around to see if the thing would follow him. It didn't. It stared down at him from the final level of the fire escape.

Ianto gripped his shoulder, turned away and ran, his footsteps echoing off of the brick buildings on either side, his breath whistling in his throat.


	2. Chapter 2

He'd died of cancer. To Jack, it seemed that everyone eventually died of that. Or monsters. Cancer or monsters.

Or time.

The small medallion in his hand caught the light and held it; reflected it into Jack's face, his eyes. Saint Nicholas. The Patron Saint of Children. Staring up at him with two fingers raised, etched into the tiny metal oval. Someone had pressed it into his hand after the service, during the customary meet-and-greet that proceeded any quiet hour spent together. He didn't know who it had been. They were gone before he could look up again. But he'd kept it in his pocket as he left, eschewing the handshakes and questions he didn't want to receive, and carried it back to the Hub with him.

He leaned back in his chair and let his hand fall onto his desk, let the medal shine from the middle of his palm. Jamie. In his seventies. Tonight beneath six feet of fresh earth, slowly beginning to molder away. It never got easier, outliving someone who was five years old when Jack met him. Someone who'd died once, been brought back. That was always the way, too. They came back. The dead refused to stay that way when Jack – or the Doctor, perhaps – were nearby. Until they finally did.

Jack had kept an eye on them, Jamie and Nancy. He figured he should, since he was able. Stuck. Crossing his own time line. It even confused _him_, and he'd lived it – although maybe that was the reason. Having lived such a long time. It all got muddy. But people didn't, and it was almost a relief to have those touchstones, those ties to the Doctor; Jamie and Nancy, who he could influence from afar, help them get off of the street, help them stay safe.

Nancy had died years before, and he'd attended her funeral, as well. Watched as Jamie, now a grown man, held his young daughter against him while she cried that Grandma was gone. It was sad, but everything was sad. Nancy had lived a full life; had known strangeness, known normality, and finally died. And Jack could envy her that, easily. All of it.

Now it was different, though. Since then, he'd found the Doctor. Been told he was "wrong", but that was sort of okay – he had things to do. People to unravel. Directions to head in that were interesting and new, now that he wasn't just waiting, now that life seemed like something he could really be involved in. It was easier to live forever when things could still surprise you. And he'd felt that, at Jamie's funeral, standing at the back of the long row of pews. That tug that he hadn't understood, not really, for the longest time. Not until he saw the Master die in the Doctor's arms. Not until he saw Owen fall to the ground after being shot so unexpectedly, so quickly. Not until he saw Tosh's eyes slip unseeing from his own. That tug that told him he regretted it; regretted death. The years they wouldn't live. It had taken so long for him to care again, and, lucky or unlucky, the caring came at a time when he was to lose people he loved. But it was better than the numbness at Nancy's funeral, at so many before and after it. Better to feel that grief completely than hide behind his bitterness.

Jack tilted his head back to look up at the ceiling, the little rings of light reflecting from the medal there. It had worked, today. The minor deception. It didn't feel exactly right, but it did feel earned. Forgive me my trespasses, as I forgive those who trespass against me. Ianto, Gwen; they'd trespassed, and while Jack had done so much more often, it was generally for their benefit rather than detriment, and it hadn't almost brought about the end of the world. Twice.

But that wasn't right, was it? A balance of lies against lies. You've done this, so I'll do that, and we're even. He'd seen it on Ianto's face today, standing in his office doorway, with that question in his eyes, _Where were you?_ Unanswerable if the game should continue. So Ianto would do something rash or calculated and think it fair. And, by their standards, it would be. But it shouldn't be that way.

Jack sighed through pursed lips, breath blowing his fringe up.

And then he heard it.

Through the speakers of the Magpie televisions stacked by the door, one soft question, "Mummy?"

He sat up violently, almost knocking the various knickknacks off of the edge of his desk. Hallucinating? Brought on by Jamie's funeral, memories of what happened to him back during the war.

Again, now from the speakers of the computer. "Mummy?"

And the intercom, "Mummy, are you there?"

He pressed the intercom button and demanded, "Who is that?"

No answer. He stood. There was someone in the Hub. There was someone in the Hub fucking with him. Because it certainly wasn't-

"Mummy!" Another voice. But the same atonal din, the same disharmony that sent his skin crawling. He gripped the edge of his desk.

"_Who is that?_"

And every speaker in the Hub burst into noise.

"Mummy! Mummy!" Hundreds of voices, hundreds of origins. Jack ran out into the Hub. Every computer was screaming with the sounds of children-but-not-children, every wall-mounted intercom grill, every earpiece left lying on the desks, all crying out for mummy.

"Stop it! Stop it!" This was not happening. This was completely impossible. They had fixed, they had stopped this in 1941, Rose and him and the Doctor, there was no way this could be happening-

The door alarms sounded, yellow lights flashing and the cogwheel began to roll. Jack pulled his Webley and pointed it at the entrance before it rolled back all the way. The noise quit. "Don't fucking move!"

But it wasn't a child with a gas mask strapped to his face.

It was Ianto, looking disheveled and horrified, his shirt smudged with dirt and his waistcoat torn down one side, jacket gone, his hands raised in surrender and his eyes very pointedly fixed on the gun. "Jack," he said, carefully.

Jack lowered the gun, then darted forward to grab Ianto's raised arm and pull him into the Hub. He rolled the door closed after them, then turned to look at him. "What the hell happened?"

Ianto shook his head, suddenly looking overcome, and Jack had to hold him by the arms to steady him. He was shaking with exhaustion. He dropped into a chair. Jack holstered his Webley and squatted to look into his face as he attempted to slow his breathing.

"There are," Ianto said finally, gaps between words filled with breath, "things – out there. They're like – zombies. With gas masks." The flicker of fear and recognition in Jack's face brought Ianto immediately back to Earth, and he leaned forward, his hand gripping Jack's shoulder. "You know – what this is."

Jack nodded curtly, standing back up in order to pace in front of Ianto, his hand coursing through his hair as he went. "In World War Two. The London Blitz. I stopped this from happening. We did – the Doctor and I."

Ianto nodded, watching him. "What is it?" His breath was coming easier now. He'd run all the way to the Hub, avoiding the shambling figures that cried after him, that reached out for him as he sidled by.

"It's – my fault." He looked at Ianto. He stopped pacing. "My fault. I did this, back then. But we _fixed_ it." He punched a frustrated fist into his other hand.

"But what _is_ it? What are they?"

"They're people," Jack said, looking distant. "People. But they've been changed. In 1941, I accidently released these small alien medical devices into the atmosphere. The first thing they found was a dead human child, and they thought that all humans must look like that. So they brought him back to life." Jack refocused on Ianto. "And they started to turn everyone else into those – things."

Ianto watched him, open-mouthed. "This is something from 1941?"

Jack shook his head and raised his hands. "I don't know. We fixed it. The kid was fine, and everyone else, and he-" Jack froze. He was coming to a realization. "He died," Jack said quietly.

"Who died?"

The phone ringing made both of them jump.

"Don't answer," Jack said immediately, as Ianto pulled his mobile out of his pocket.

"It's Gwen." Ianto met his eyes, paused a beat, then flipped it open. "Gwen? Are you all right?"

"No I'm bloody not!" Her voice was slightly garbled through the phone. "I've been trying to get ahold of you for ages, but they're on the phones! There's these – things – God, Ianto, they're horrible, pressing themselves against the windows, and Rhys-"

Jack took the phone from Ianto and pressed it to his ear. "What's going on?"

"Rhys is sick!" Gwen sounded like she was moving, probably pacing. "It's like the flu, and he says it's like something's in his throat. It just came on so suddenly, and the news is on about this sudden virus going around, and-"

"Gwen," Jack stopped her, speaking very clearly. "Don't touch him. Don't go near him. We'll be there in ten minutes."

"But-"

"Don't," Jack said. "Just stay away from him."

"What the hell's going on, Jack?"

"We'll tell you about it when we get there." He hung up, and looked around for Ianto. He was already moving for the SUV keys in Jack's office, his gun tucked into the back of his trousers.

- - -

They pulled up outside of her flat fifteen minutes later, delayed by streets strewn with cars, strewn with shuffling figures. It was like a zombie film – dead cars with doors hanging open, traffic lights changing uselessly at every intersection.

Slamming the doors to the SUV and stepping onto the walk up to Gwen's flat, they both halted at a sudden shout. "Rhys! Rhys, sweetheart? What are you doing? Stop! Stop it!"

They ran, pounding up the stairs, and Jack threw his shoulder against the door and flew inside, pausing for only an instant at the sight of Rhys slowly backing Gwen into a corner in their living room. Rhys, with a black strap across the back of his head, arms stretching toward her, sobbing, "Mummy! Mummy!"

"Rhys!" he shouted, stepping forward, "Get away from her!"

Rhys turned, and Ianto shuddered at the sight of him; black, shining latex covering his face, his eyes and mouth extended and ringed with metal. "Mummy?"

"Not your mummy," Jack muttered, then stepped forward and pushed Rhys away. He stumbled and fell against the couch, and Jack grabbed Gwen, who was staring fixedly at her husband, and ran for the door. Ianto stepped out of the way and then followed them out, with one quick glance backward to see Rhys rising slowly to his feet.

Outside, in the orangeish glow from the streetlights, Jack pulled Gwen toward the SUV. She didn't come willingly; she dragged her feet, looking back at the flat, even as Jack yelled for her to concentrate, to hurry, they didn't have time to worry about Rhys right now. Gwen stumbled and Jack let go of her hand.

When he turned back to look, she was stopped dead, staring at him, her mouth open. And then, a shine of terror crept into her eyes. Her hands flew to her throat, like she was choking, drowning. Ianto hurried toward her, but Jack barked, "Stop!" and he did, a few feet away, watching, horrified, as Gwen turned her head to look at him, mouthing 'help' without sound. And then, through her throat, past her teeth, a metal circle pushed its way out of her mouth and her eyes widened further, fingers scrambling at it as it grew longer, followed by that same black latex. Her hands fell to her sides as the latex traveled from her mouth and over the rest of her face, framing her eyes, meeting her hairline in pale, puckered scars. And then the metal grew out around her eyes, protruded from her face and formed glass goggles.

She took one loud breath and asked, "Are you my mummy?"

"Ianto!" Jack called, and Ianto was shaken from his daze of terror enough to stumble away as Gwen lurched toward him. He ran for the SUV, on Jack's heels, and they both threw themselves inside, slamming the doors and turning around to see Gwen approaching, with Rhys a few feet behind her. Jack and Ianto watched, the only sound in the car their quick, heavy breathing, as Rhys and Gwen pressed their hands against the outside of the SUV, moving all around it, trying and failing to find a way in. Then they wandered slowly away. The two men didn't breath normally again until they were out of sight.

Jack looked at Ianto. "Did they touch you?" Ianto shook his head, and Jack leaned back into the backseat, looking for something. "We can use this – here." He pulled out a Philemon filter and began to fiddle with the buttons.

"Isn't that how we found out Suzie was draining Gwen?" Ianto asked, leaning forward to see it better.

"Yeah. It'll tell us if there's any change in your biochemistry. That's how the nanogenes do it. They change you cell by cell." Jack looked up. "Hold out your arms." Ianto did so, sitting straighter in the seat, and Jack traced the machine over him slowly, from the top of his head and down to his chest, across both arms, over his stomach. Finally, he sat back. "You're fine. No change."

Ianto took the detector from his hand. "Better safe," he said, and ran the machine over Jack. It pinged. Ianto looked up.

Jack's breathing was labored, his eyes wide, his throat working.

Ianto dropped the filter and backed against the door. "Jack?"

"Muh-" Jack said, his face filling with pain and horror, "Muh – muh-"

Ianto wrenched the door open and stumbled out into the street, falling onto his hands and knees and then scrambling away as Jack crawled over the center console and out of the passenger door after him. Ianto ran a few meters before he stopped and looked back to see Jack, arms at his sides, face to the sky, mouth slack, screaming silently as a respirator slowly made its way up his throat and out of his mouth. As he shuffled forward, the mask took more of his face, until it was all that was there; somehow so fitting above the RAF coat, but also horrible, the scarred burns around the edges visible even from Ianto's distance. Jack took another step forward and screamed across the space, "Mummy!"

Ianto watched, heart pounding in his chest, the high-pitched whine of panic whistling in his ears. He drew his gun. He didn't know if this would work. But it would have to. Otherwise-

He aimed.

"I'm sorry, Jack."

He fired.


	3. Chapter 3

The report was deafening in the silent street. Jack jerked back at the impact of the bullet, raising his hands to his forehead, where a hole had appeared through the smooth black latex. He stumbled, then fell forward onto the asphalt, twitching, until finally he lay still. Ianto kept the gun trained on him, moving slowly forward, into and out of the light of the streetlamps. Jack didn't move again. Ianto stopped about a meter away and slowly lowered the gun. He waited.

A minute later, Jack burst to life with an incredible breath and rolled over. The mask was gone. Ianto hurried forward, stowing his gun before he kneeled down next to him. "Come on, we've got to get out of the street." Jack looked at him, uncomprehending. Ianto grabbed his arm. "They'll be drawn by the gunshot. Come on." He pulled Jack up by his arm and shoved him toward the SUV, keeping an eye out for movement along the road. Halfway to the car, Jack seemed to come back to himself and he made a beeline for the driver side, throwing open the door as Ianto made for the passenger side, where the door was still ajar. When he got in, Jack was already starting the car.

"You shot me," Jack said, sounding amused.

"I figured it might work."

Jack glanced at him. "Did it occur to you that the change might have taken away my ability to come back?" Ianto said nothing, but let out a breath. Jack grinned. "I'll take that as a no." He pulled into the street.

"Where are we going?"

"To see a girl."

Jack pressed the pedal to the floor.

- - -

The woman who opened the door was formally dressed, young and terrified. "Who are you?" she asked, taking them in, standing on her front stoop; a man in a military coat and another man who looked like he'd been through a shredder.

Jack wasted no time. "You have to come with us."

"What? No!" Her hand tightened on the doorknob as she took a step back to slam it closed.

Jack stopped it with his hand. "There's no time to explain, you're just going to have to trust us."

"I don't even know you!" She stopped. She searched Jack's face. "You! You were at my father's funeral today!"

Ianto glanced at Jack, standing a few steps behind him. He said nothing.

"I knew your father," Jack explained, his voice calm and low. "I helped him out, once. We're not going to hurt you. You have to come with us."

"Why?" Her eyes were huge over trembling lips. Ianto didn't blame her. Her father's funeral, zombies and two unfamiliar kidnappers all in the same day.

"We need your help." Ianto could see Jack's impatience in the tenseness of his shoulders, the set of his jaw; but he held it back, applying whatever minimal people skills he had to coax this woman into coming with them. "Everything that's happening – we need you to help us fix it."

"What can I do?" Her voice was growing more and more quiet, the catches in her breath more frequent as she seemed to battle with the panic that was slipping into her eyes.

"There's really no time," Jack said, and he held out his hand to her. "Please. You're our only chance."

She paused, looking at his hand.

Then, from somewhere in the house, there was the crashing sound of glass breaking, and the discordant cries of "Mummy! Mummy!"

The woman jumped at the sound and turned. Jack grabbed her arm. "They're coming for you. They can sense us. We have to go." She looked at him, her eyes terrified. Finally, she nodded.

Jack pulled her out of the house and down the steps, running for the car. Ianto followed, with a final glance over his shoulder to see a gas masked face floating in a window.

- - -

Ianto moved the Philemon filter over the girl. "What's your name?"

She shifted with the nervous swing of her legs, teeth gritted against the unpleasant cold of the autopsy table. "Kate." Her eyes followed Ianto's hands holding the filter as he ran it down one arm and then the other. "What are you doing?"

"Checking that you haven't been affected by the – whatever they are." He lowered the filter and looked up at Jack. "She's clear."

Jack was pacing the curved upper level of the autopsy bay, his hands in his pockets. He stopped and leaned over the edge, gripping the rail. "Did your dad ever tell you about the war?"

Kate blinked up at him. "World War Two? He said he was too young to remember anything."

"What about your grandmother? No stories?"

She shook her head. "Listen, I want to know what's going on. You can't just keep me here like this without an explanation." Ianto watched the fierceness in her eyes as she glared up at Jack, heard the cold fact in her voice, and guessed that she was probably a barrister. He grinned quietly to himself. He was probably right.

Jack peered down at her. "It's hard to explain."

"Make an attempt."

Jack paused for a moment, then grinned. "You've got a lot of your grandmother in you."

Kate waved this away. "How did you know her? How did you know my dad? And what are you talking about, World War Two? What about it?"

Jack sighed and leaned his elbows against the railing. "I knew your dad and grandmother during the war."

Ianto turned his eyes, suddenly intent, to Jack. This would be a story he hadn't heard before. The girl just stared. "There's no way you'd have known them. How old are you?"

"Like I said, it's hard to explain."

"But-"

Ianto touched her arm and shook his head. "Better just to listen. It's too complicated. Just know that it's possible."

Jack gave Ianto a grateful nod before turning his attention back to Kate, who looked at least slightly mollified. He went on. "I met them during the London Blitz. Your grandmother was helping the kids in the streets find food by stealing from dishonest houses during air raids. Your dad – well," Jack frowned, trying to find a way to explain, "he'd been killed a few weeks before."

Kate's mouth dropped open. "What? What are you-"

Jack held up a hand. "Let me finish. You have to understand, there are a lot of things in this world that you don't know about. That no one knows about but us." His eyes went to Ianto, then back to her. "Aliens, other dimensions - all of the things that have happened over the last few years haven't been tricks. They're real. And they've been happening for a long time. That's something you have to accept, if you want to help us save the world tonight."

Kate stared up at him, taking a few deep, slow breaths. Jack's gaze back didn't waver. Finally, she closed her eyes, shook her head, and opened them again. "All right," she said, weakly. "I believe you."

Jack nodded. "Good." He paused for a second, arranging his thoughts. "Jamie, your dad, was killed in a bomb blast. The same night, an alien spacecraft crashed nearby. I brought it. It was an ambulance, from a race of aliens called Chula. They have healing technology called nanogenes, which are able to take predetermined information about a species and apply it to others of the same species, to heal injuries. The nanogenes in that Chula ambulance – the first thing they found was your dad. A dead five-year-old-boy wearing a gas mask. And they brought him back to life."

Jack paused, gauging the reaction to this information on her face. She was, unsurprisingly, shocked, and looked a bit ill, but otherwise she was taking it all right. Jack's eyes flickered to Ianto, and there was the surprise. The well-concealed feelings only visible in his eyes, but there they were so obvious as to not be concealed at all: _Why does no one ever really die?_ And Jack could relate to that. He smiled weakly, then looked away, shaking his head.

"Problem is, their basic knowledge about human anatomy was suddenly a dead five-year-old. So everyone else, all of the normal humans, were wrong to them. Needed to be fixed. He was taken to the hospital, and soon the nanogenes moved on to the nurses who treated him. They were changed, into the things you've seen outside. People who are technically dead, with gas masks fused to their faces. Only really, there's no face underneath. It's just the mask. And then everyone in the hospital had the same symptoms. They all became the same thing. And all of them had the single-minded need to find 'mummy', because that was what Jamie wanted, and Jamie was the first." Jack met Kate's eyes. "Your grandmother, Nancy, had told Jamie that she was his sister his whole life, because she had him when she was so young. A young single mother in 1936. So Jamie was constantly looking for his mother."

He sighed and leaned more heavily on his arms. "I didn't know what I'd done. I was too busy being smug about-" He glanced at Ianto, then away. "The ambulance was part of a con. I used it to draw two people I saw passing – they weren't who I thought they were, but it was a good thing, because they were the only two people who could have figured it out, I think. They brought Jamie and Nancy together, and Nancy told Jamie that she was his mother, and she touched him, and the nanogenes figured out that her DNA was the correct anatomy of a human, the parent DNA. So they fixed Jamie, made him a regular kid again. And the Doctor – one of the people I drew in with the ambulance – used the patched nanogenes to fix everyone else." He waved his hand uncomfortably. "The end."

Kate took a few moments to take this in, looking down at her hands in her lap. Ianto asked quietly, "Why did all of them have the same – why did they all want 'mummy'?"

Jack nodded approvingly. "Good question. Jamie was the first person the nanogenes found, so he was sort of a master copy – and a general. The ambulance was a warship. The nanogenes were equipped to turn any living being into a Chula warrior. That's why they can OmCom – use speaker grills to communicate. And why they're so strong. So Jamie was the leader of the group. And, now that I think of it-" Jack broke off, brows knitted, gears turning. "That's probably why the – what are we calling them? Gas mask zombies? The infected? – that's probably why they're so violent and aimless now. And that's also why it's spreading so much faster. They still have the prime directive – find mummy – but they don't have a leader to follow. Because Jamie's dead."

Kate suddenly looked up again. "Wait, wait. How did this start up again, if you fixed it?"

Jack's eyebrows shot up. "I – I don't know."

Ianto shook his head. "I do."

They both looked at him. Ianto looked between them. "Jamie died." He looked at Jack. "When I killed you, the nanogenes left you and you went back to normal. When Jamie died, whatever nanogenes were still hanging around must have left him. And some of them might have gone unchanged – unpatched – back in 1941."

Jack hit his own forehead with his hand. "Why didn't I think of that? I knew there was a reason I hired you."

Ianto smirked. "Not just the coffee?"

"Or the suit. Although, the view while you were walking away in that warehouse-"

"Ahem." Between them, Kate cleared her throat for their attention. "Sorry, end of the world above our heads, a bit of focus if you please?" She looked at Jack. "And, I'm sorry, but, he _killed you_?"

"Happens all the time. Good for the blood." Jack grinned.

"All over that coat," Ianto muttered.

"I noticed you avoided the clothes," Jack said, standing up straight and crossing his arms. "Nice headshot."

Ianto flushed briefly. "Kate's right. End of the world." He arranged his face to be more serious, and the feeling followed swiftly after. "What are we going to do, Jack?"

Jack let the levity fall out of his face and off of his shoulders, and he slumped back against the white tile wall. "We don't have the original copy anymore, and that's what the Doctor used to fix them in the first place. All we have is Kate. She's a mix of the original copy and the mother copy – Jamie and Nancy. Plus a lot of dilution."

Kate set her teeth. "I take it you're referring to my mother."

Ianto smiled, very small on his lips. "Sorry. Jack's not one for putting things politely."

She looked at him, then matched his smile. "Guess that's why he has you?"

"Hey!" Jack called, waving his hand from his perch above them. "Now who's flirting at the end of the world?"

"Isn't my DNA enough, though?" She straightened up, looking at Jack, her legs still swinging a bit beneath the table. "If it has traces of the original copy and the mother copy?"

Jack shrugged. "It's all we have, so it's gonna have to be enough. Thing is, how are we going to spread it? You can't just go out and hug every zombie you see. It'll be in Aberdeen by noon tomorrow. We'll never stop it in time."

"There must be something in the Hub that was can use," Ianto said, leaning back against a medical cabinet, unconsciously mirroring Jack's stance. "In the archives. Something that can take her DNA and spread it, the way the nanogenes spread themselves."

Jack's head snapped up. "Two points for Ianto." His grin stretched across his face and he pushed himself away from the wall. "We don't need something that's _like_ the nanogenes – we can use the nanogenes themselves!" He ran out of the autopsy bay. Kate and Ianto followed him with their eyes until he disappeared.

Ianto looked at her. "He does that."

He came back three minutes later with a small glass jar, sealed airtight. It looked empty. Ianto raised a brow at it. "I thought that was just a jar in your room."

"A jar is never just a jar, Ianto," Jack said, attempting mystery, and Ianto hid his smirk with a glance over his shoulder.

"I'll be sure not to go through your cupboards, then."

Jack ignored him, moving to stand in front of Kate. "I found these a few weeks ago. Figured they might come in handy at some point." He carefully screwed off the lid of the jar, then looked at Kate. "Snap your fingers."

Her brow furrowed, but he just nodded, so she shrugged and did what he said; she raised a hand up and snapped. There was a golden pulse from the inside of the jar, and then her hand was surrounded by tiny dots of light. She marveled at them, her mouth forming an admiring "o". "These are nanogenes?"

Jack nodded. "They've never met with human DNA before. I made sure of it. You're the first one they've come across."

Ianto said stepping forward slightly to look at the shifting light around Kate's hand. "There aren't very many of them. How are we going to spread them before the – the virus leaves Cardiff?"

Jack watched the nanogenes pulse and swirl between Kate's fingers and around her palm. "We need something that will multiply them and spread them out over a pretty fair distance. We can rely on a kind of relay for any stragglers, but it does need to hit a lot of people in one go for it to be effective."

Ianto snapped out of his trance, looking from the nanogenes to Jack, lit up with an idea. "We have a terraforming device that fell through the rift last year. Tosh said that it took small samples of livable atmosphere and multiplied them almost infinitely, enough to cover the whole planet. It still works. We can feed the nanogenes into it."

Jack looked at him, eyes huge. He grabbed him by the shoulders. "Ianto Jones, you might have just saved the world." Then he kissed him roughly and ran out of the autopsy bay again.

Again, Ianto looked at Kate, unphased. "He does that, too."

"Remind me to save the world sometime." Ianto smirked and Kate laughed. "What? He's quite fit."

"You don't have to save the world for Jack Harkness to kiss you. You just have to be standing near him."

Jack returned carrying a large glass sphere. He set it carefully on the autopsy table, and Kate slid off to get a better look at it. "This is a terraforming sphere," Jack said to her, running a hand over its perfectly smooth surface. "In the future, when humanity starts to move out to other planets, they'll use things like this to make the planets habitable."

"All right," she said, bending to peer through it, "then how do you have one right now?"

"There's a rift in space and time that runs through Cardiff. Sometimes things slip through. That's what we do – we find whatever the rift coughs up and either use it or store it."

Kate glanced at him but said nothing. Whether or not she believed him wasn't entirely clear, but it didn't much matter. Ianto touched the glass of the sphere. "Tosh said it took a week for the device to cycle up high enough to cover the planet. It shouldn't take more than half an hour to cycle high enough the cover Cardiff."

Jack grinned. "We're going to be fixing a lot of cuts and bruises tonight." He unhooked a latch and turned the opening toward Kate. "Put your hand inside," he said, nodding toward the hand where the nanogenes still hovered. She looked suspicious, but Jack shook his head. "It won't hurt. Scout's honor." She snorted, but put her hand into the sphere all the same. Once inside, the nanogenes pulsed again, and spread away from her skin. She pulled her hand out, and the nanogenes stayed. Jack closed the latch. "Okay. Now all we need to do is get to the highest point in Cardiff and break this thing to spread the patched DNA. Ianto, what's the tallest building in the city?"

"Capital Tower," Ianto said automatically. "About two miles away."

"Perfect." Jack picked up the terraforming sphere and carried it in both hands up the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder at Kate and Ianto. "Coming?" They followed him out into the Hub.

Jack went into his office for something and Ianto stopped at one of the workstations to bring up the CCTV feeds. He went through them quickly, all of them showing the same thing; shambling shapes, eerily stiff and unresponsive to each other. And then, at one image, he cursed and pounded a fist on the desk. Kate jumped next to him. "What?"

"The SUV. It's totally surrounded."

Jack came out of his office carrying a large black case and peered over his shoulder at the image. Under his breath, he muttered a curse in a language Ianto didn't know. "Looks like we're taking the slow route."

"Through all of those things?" Kate asked, incredulous, watching as Jack went through the feeds again. "We won't make it ten meters!"

"Underground," Ianto said, and they looked at him. "The tunnels. We can get halfway. They go as far as St. David's Hall."


	4. Chapter 4

Ten minutes later they were moving beneath the city, each armed with a torch against the dark, single file through the narrow stone halls. Jack hefted the terraforming sphere in a heavy, indestructible case and brought up the rear. Ianto took the lead and was constantly conscious of Kate behind him, her quick breaths frosting in the dark. He could almost feel her trembling.

"It's all right," he said quietly after a few minutes of silence, looking back over his shoulder at her. "They can't get into the Hub. And if they had, the alarms would have sounded."

She shook her head, then swallowed, trying to edge words past her breathing. "It isn't – it isn't them. How can you stand this place? It's like – catacombs."

Ianto felt the familiar sentiment strike his stomach and he turned forward again with a catch of breath he prayed was inaudible. He heard Jack's faltered step and knew it wasn't.

They reached a junction and Kate asked for a break. Granted one, she sat against a wall and shone her torch down into her lap, holding up her head with one hand and taking deep breaths that echoed in the endless tunnels. Jack sidled up next to Ianto and leaned beside him against the wall. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize."

The softness in Jack's voice surprised Ianto, but he only shook his head. "I suggested it."

"You did." They stood in silence for a moment. The rough edges of the stone pressed against Ianto's back poked through his waistcoat and shirt, uncomfortable and sharp, but it was grounding, good. Kept him clear. "You suggested it," Jack repeated, musing.

"Leave it." Ianto turned his head to look at Jack – the Jack-shaped shadow next to him, only an outline with his torch pointed away. "This is the way I brought her in. I wheeled her through his place with all of the equipment. And now you know that. Or maybe you'd guessed. But you didn't ask, and it's been fine so far. So leave it."

Jack brought his torch up to highlight Ianto's face, and in doing so showed his own. He was frowning, deep, the lines in his forehead looking almost painful. He met Ianto's eyes. "Okay."

Ianto nodded. He kept Jack's eyes. "How long have you had those nanogenes in your bunker?"

Jack let out a very slow breath. "Two weeks."

"You didn't try it on-"

"No." Jack looked at the wall across from them. "We've had enough of that. Reanimation. It might go wrong." He paused. "It might go right."

Ianto watched Jack's face. "It's all right," he said. Jack looked at him. "I'm glad you didn't try it. We've seen how it goes."

Jack paused. He nodded.

Ianto hesitated. Then, "You met the Doctor trying to con him."

Jack shrugged, giving an almost embarrassed grin. "I wasn't always the pure and honest man you see before you."

Ianto snorted and pushed away from the wall. "Are you all right to go on, Kate?"

Kate looked up at him, then stood and brushed off. "As I'll ever be," she said, and sounded exhausted. "I'll be glad when this is over."

"That goes without saying." Ianto smiled a little. "Let's go."

- - -

The stage door of St. David's Hall opened to a wide alley. Ianto slipped out into the dark, straining his eyes to catch any movement. It seemed empty. He looked back at Jack. "What now?"

"We walk," said Jack, stepping past Ianto. "Very quietly." He gestured with his free hand for them to follow him, and set off along the alley, staying close to the far wall. Ahead, the streetlights were visible from The Hayes. "If we run into any of them, just stay calm and avoid them. Capital Tower is about half a mile north."

They stepped out of the mouth of the alley.

And into the midst of hundreds of infected.

They were frozen, staring. All of them standing with their arms at their sides, at attention, faces – masks, all masks, all masks – upturned toward the sky. A sea of bodies, unmoving. Along The Hayes in both directions they stood spaced out and silent. Almost silent. They breathed as one. The rise and fall of their chests; the rough, bleak sound of air through respirators, hundreds of respirators, hundreds of monsters breathing.

Jack, Kate and Ianto stared. Kate slowly reached across for Ianto's hand and he took it without looking at her. Jack raised a finger to his lips and stepped ahead of them.

Nothing happened. The infected didn't move.

Jack looked back and waved for them to follow him. They did, picking slowly through the masses, winding in and out through motionless bodies. The streetlights pooled around shoes, pooled around trousers; a little girl in pyjamas, bare feet, blonde hair and the mask, those eyes reflecting that light, shining ungodly bright. A woman entirely naked, standing there alone, half in and half out of the light, looking up, like all of them, looking up.

Kate's trainers crunched broken glass and she paused, terrified, as if the sound would awaken them. But it didn't. They didn't move. Ianto squeezed her hand and they went on, Jack always ahead of them, Jack always conscious of how far behind they were.

The breathing winding through the air. In Ianto's ears. In all directions. The breathing in and out. In and out. Hypnotic, slow, inescapable. They breathed.

Another step, and the church bells rang. St. John's Parish singing the hour.

A synchronous jerk.

One slow head turned. One high voice. "Are you my mummy?"

"RUN!" Jack grabbed Ianto's hand and they flew.

All around them, the bodies were moving, jerking uncontrollably, screaming out into the night, "_Are you my mummy? Are you my mummy?"_ The words had no meaning; they were only words, only syllables, like a roar from the depth of a forest. They wanted nothing but to reach out and touch. Ianto dodged hands, dodged bodies that blocked his way as the bells rang and the infected screamed. He kept tight hold of Kate's hand, of Jack's hand, and ran.

Jack redirected them across a car park, choked with bodies whose paroxysms were lessening, were becoming more controlled, and behind them they could already hear the approach of the freed infected, no longer locked into place. But Capital Tower was in sight, and Jack pulled them faster.

He ushered them up the concrete steps of the building and they burst through the doors into an empty lobby. Only the emergency lights were on. Otherwise, it was pitch black. "The stairs," Jack said, and moved for the marked door. Then he stopped.

Ianto looked back at him. "Jack?"

Jack's eyes were wide, unfocused. "It's airborne," he said.

"What are you talking about?" Ianto stepped toward him, but Jack held out a hand.

"I'm infected." He stepped back, then threw the heavy case containing the terraforming sphere at Ianto, who caught it before it struck his face. "The nanogenes are learning. Shooting me won't help this time." His eyes focused for only a second, and he looked at Ianto. "Run."

"Jack-"

"Run!"

And they did. Ianto grabbed Kate's hand and pulled her through the stairway door as Jack fell to his knees. Ianto caught the black crawl of latex across Jack's face before the door swung shut and they were running again, up the stairs.

Kate gasped out, "What happened to him?"

From the bottom of the stairwell, something that was and was not Jack's voice screamed, "MUMMY!"

"Oh my god, oh my god-" Kate was half-sobbing, and her panic spurred Ianto faster, taking the stairs two at a time, both of them running on adrenaline and fear and the desire not to become that, not to become what Jack was, even as they heard his steps pounding up the stairs below, and behind him the steps of the mob, still following, still screaming.

"Run, run, run-" Ianto said under his breath, the case slowing them down, Kate's heels. Floors flew by, the numbers growing higher as their fatigue increased, the screaming of their lungs and muscles, their heartbeats pounding in their heads almost matching the cacophony in the stairwell below. Ianto did not look over the edge of the stair rail, did not want to see hundreds of identical gas-mask faces staring up at him.

Finally, a red door (ROOF ACCESS) loomed, and they stumbled through it, out into the air. Ianto let go of Kate's hand as she collapsed onto the concrete, trying to draw breath normally. He ran to the edge and looked over. There were swarms of them; thousands, all clambering for the entrance. There was a noise behind him and he jumped, turning, to see the roof door thrown open and a mass of bodies beginning to push through. Jack in the lead. They stalked toward Kate, who sat terrified on her knees, unable to move, watching their painfully slow advance.

And then they stopped. Stopped moving, stopped crying out, and at first Ianto didn't know why. And then the wind blew in his direction, and he could catch the strains of Kate's voice, singing. "Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty black birds baked in a pie-"

The masked people stood still, all of them watching her as she continued. She looked over her shoulder at Ianto; her eyes clearly said, _I can't do this forever._ Her voice trembled.

Ianto quickly set the case down and unlatched it. He lifted out the terraforming sphere. It glowed in his hands, casting golden light onto his face as he straightened with it. He closed his eyes and pressed it between his palms. "Please."

He took a breath and threw it into the air with all of his strength.

He drew his gun and fired.

The sky exploded in gold.

It stretched out in every direction, like a huge firework, and hung there for a moment, making the city suddenly daytime again. And then it began to fall. The nanogenes swirled down from the sky like sentient rain. They fell on the people below in the street, who all stopped the movement. They fell on the group surrounding Kate, who all toppled over. They fell on Ianto, and he could feel it; the bruising on his shoulder where he'd fallen earlier, the cuts on his face and hands, all healing with a gentle tingle.

He could hear the people stirring, and turned to see Kate kneeling next to Jack, her hand on his shoulder. She looked up at Ianto and smiled. He smiled back.

- - -

"_News agencies across the world are reporting the alleged 'miracle cure' that occurred last night in South Wales. Surrounding areas describe the event as a rain of lights that lasted for about five minutes, centered around the city of Cardiff. Those who were touched by the lights reported memory loss, as well as the strangest part of this story – spontaneous healing. One man we spoke to assured us that his right hand had been lost in an accident five years before, and yet the hand was there this morning. Others report healed bones, healed lacerations, and hospitals in Cardiff are having trouble keeping up with the number of patients being discharged due to this startling incident. One thing can be said with certainty, though. Of all of the strange things that have happened in this city over the last few years, this is truly the kindest of them. Back to you, Vincent."_

Ianto switched off the radio and leaned back in the driver's seat, digging the heels of his hands into the hollows of his eyes. It was dawn. The sky was a very light blue, the clouds edged pink and reflected in the bay below. Damage control had been surprisingly simple; the nanogenes had automatically generated memory loss, so no mass retcon was needed. And the spontaneous healing had kept people from panicking when they woke up in an unfamiliar place with no memory of how they got there. People tended to view the world a bit fairer when their limbs were grown back, their scars vanished, their bones mended mysteriously in the night.

Ianto turned the SUV off and slipped out. The Plass was littered with people, as it had been since the nanogenes had done their work. Strangers discussed it on the sidewalks, people clapped each other on the back or hugged, shook hands, laughed. It was like a team had won, or there was a national event, and it was always this kind of reaction in the public that made Ianto feel strange and separate from the world. But it was with a strange and gorgeous relief that he walked through the people gathered on the stones and didn't worry about them touching him, didn't listen for the word "mummy". They were just people, and that was somehow safer than it had ever been before.

There was a very familiar silhouette leaning his elbows on a railing and looking out over the bay.

Ianto approached and settled next to Jack, his back to the bar. "The news is calling it a miracle. The Vatican will be issuing a statement later today."

"They'll probably take all the credit for it," Jack sighed, and Ianto heard the smile that followed. "Won't be the first time." He looked up at Ianto. "How's Kate?"

"Fine." Ianto's suit jacket whipped against him in the wind off the bay. He'd had to nip home and change. The miracle cure hadn't been able to save the suit he'd been wearing. "Put to bed with a bit of warm milk and retcon."

Jack nodded, his gaze drifting back out over the water.

Ianto turned and settled on his elbows, his shoulder against Jack's. "This is unfamiliar territory."

"What is?"

"Cardiff waking up to something good. Normally it's monsters and fear and the dark. This time it's only us that saw that. And all they saw was light."

Jack acknowledged this with a hum, lost with the wind that blew his hair back. "It'll be good for them. This city needs more things like that. Hope."

Ianto laughed low. "I just wish it worked out like that for us, sometimes."

Jack glanced at him, and then away. He shifted to press his shoulder closer to Ianto's. They were quiet for a moment, looking out over the water, reflecting the sky as it brightened slowly.

Ianto said softly, "You could have told me you were going to a funeral." Jack looked at him, eyebrows drawn down, uncomprehending. Ianto didn't turn his eyes from the bay. "I understand," he said, and paused. "I know that there are things that you aren't going to tell me. Things about yourself, your past, everything. I get that. But, right now-" Ianto forced himself to meet Jack's eyes. "The things that are happening right now. Those are things you can share. You wouldn't have had to tell me who it was, or why you knew them. I wouldn't have asked. But it affected you. It hurt you, and I want-" He sighed. "I want to be able to help with that. If you let me."

Jack held Ianto's eyes and made not a sound; time spooled out forever between them, the sun finally starting to touch the world around them, turning everything to gold. Then Jack dipped his head forward and pressed his lips to Ianto's, chaste and soft. Ianto's eyes slipped closed and his hand found Jack's on the railing; he weaved their fingers together, unquestioningly intimate. Jack mumbled through the kiss, "I will."

The sun kept rising. The city smiled for days.


End file.
